Terminal Sessions MCP

Interactive, persistent terminal sessions for AI assistants via Model Context Protocol

Why This Matters

While many AI tools offer basic command execution, Terminal Sessions MCP provides unique capabilities:

What makes this different:

• Sessions survive IDE restarts - Unlike typical tools, your sessions persist even when you close Cursor/Claude Desktop

• Background tasks with log access - Run dev servers, builds, or tests in background while retaining full access to their output

• True interactivity - Send input to prompts, handle confirmations, respond to interactive tools

• Process control - Send signals (Ctrl+C, Ctrl+Z) to gracefully manage long-running processes

• Stateful environment - cd, export, and environment changes persist across commands

• Visual debugging - Take screenshots of terminal output to debug TUI applications

• Context search - Search through command history and output with regex

Your AI assistant can now run servers in the background while working on other tasks, maintain persistent development environments, handle interactive workflows, and even build terminal UI applications with visual feedback.

Related MCP server: iTerm MCP

MCP Features

✅ Truly Persistent Sessions - Sessions survive Cursor/IDE restarts, keeping all state
✅ Interactive Workflows - Handle password prompts, confirmations, and interactive tools
✅ Build & Debug TUIs - Develop terminal UI apps with visual feedback via screenshots
✅ Process Control - Send signals (SIGINT, SIGTERM, SIGTSTP) to running processes
✅ Stateful Shell - cd, export, and other state changes persist across AI responses
✅ Log Search - Search through command history and output with regex and context
✅ Service Management - Start services with intelligent readiness detection
✅ Smart Command Execution - Detects when commands complete, handles long-running processes
✅ Multi-Session Management - Track multiple services/sessions by name
✅ Terminal Screenshots - Capture visually rich terminal output for debugging
✅ Real-Time Streaming - Watch output as it happens, not just final results

Quick Start for AI Assistants

1. Install

Option A: Global install (recommended)

npm install -g term-sessions-mcp

Option B: Local install

npm install term-sessions-mcp

2. Start the Terminal Session Server

This is the backend server that actually manages your terminal sessions:

If installed globally:

session-server
# Starts session server on port 3100 (with GUI on port 3200)

If installed locally:

npx session-server

Headless mode (no GUI):

session-server --headless

Remote access (bind to all interfaces):

session-server --host 0.0.0.0 --token your-secret-token

Who may connect. Both ports (the session API and the web GUI) refuse browser pages from other sites: a request that carries an Origin must come from the GUI's own page, or from an origin you list with --allow-origin. Without a token, they also serve only requests addressed to localhost, 127.0.0.1, [::1] or the bind address; to reach a token-less server by any other name, list it with --allow-host (or, better, use --token):

session-server --allow-origin https://dashboard.example   # a page that drives the API from a browser
session-server --host 0.0.0.0 --allow-host mybox.local    # token-less, LAN name (prefer --token)

Both flags take comma-separated values and may repeat.

Keep this server running in the background - your AI assistant will connect to it.

3. Configure the MCP Bridge for Your AI

This connects your AI assistant (Cursor/Claude) to the session server:

For Cursor:

1. Open Cursor Settings

2. Go to Cursor Settings → MCP

3. Click "Add Custom MCP"

4. This will open an editor for your MCP configuration

5. Add the following:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "terminal-sessions": {
      "command": "terminal-sessions-mcp",
      "env": {
        "SESSION_SERVER_PORT": "3100"
      }
    }
  }
}

For Claude Desktop: Add to your ~/Library/Application Support/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "terminal-sessions": {
      "command": "terminal-sessions-mcp",
      "env": {
        "SESSION_SERVER_PORT": "3100"
      }
    }
  }
}

If the above doesn't work, you may need to use the full path. Find it with:

which terminal-sessions-mcp

Then use that path in your config:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "terminal-sessions": {
      "command": "/full/path/to/terminal-sessions-mcp",
      "env": {
        "SESSION_SERVER_PORT": "3100"
      }
    }
  }
}

Important Notes:

• Make sure session-server is running on port 3100 before starting Cursor/Claude

• The terminal-sessions-mcp executable is the MCP bridge - Cursor/Claude runs it automatically

• You don't need to run terminal-sessions-mcp manually - only run session-server

4. Use with Your AI Assistant

Your AI assistant now has access to these MCP tools:

• startService - Start a service with readiness detection

• runCommand - Execute a command in a session

• tailLogs - Get recent output from a session

• searchLogs - Search through output with regex

• sendInput - Send input to interactive prompts (with named-key support for TUIs)

• sendSignal - Send signals (Ctrl+C, etc.) to processes

• listSessions - See all active sessions

• killSession - Stop a session gracefully or forcefully

• takeScreenshot - Capture terminal visual state

Web GUI (Optional)

The server includes an optional web-based GUI for human operators to monitor and interact with sessions:

Features:

• 📊 Dashboard showing all active sessions with live status

• 🖥️ Full xterm.js terminal emulator with 256-color support

• 🖱️ Complete mouse support in TUI apps (Midnight Commander, htop, etc.)

• ⌨️ Direct keyboard input with proper key code forwarding

• 📐 Automatic resize handling for perfect coordinate mapping

• 🎨 Beautiful GitHub-inspired dark theme

• 🔄 Real-time output streaming

• ⚡ Signal controls (Ctrl+C, Ctrl+Z, SIGTERM)

Access: Open http://localhost:3200 when running with GUI enabled (default), or use --headless to disable.

TUI Control Sequences Support

All terminal control sequences work perfectly, enabling rich TUI applications:

• ✅ Cursor positioning - \033[row;colH

• ✅ Screen clearing - \033[2J\033[H

• ✅ Colors & formatting - All ANSI codes (30-37, 40-47, bold, dim, etc.)

• ✅ Progress bars - Dynamic updates with proper positioning

• ✅ Box drawing - UTF-8 box characters (╔═══╗)

• ✅ Live TUIs - htop, vim, tmux, custom TUI apps

API Usage

From TypeScript/JavaScript

import { SessionClient } from 'term-sessions-mcp';

const client = new SessionClient('ws://localhost:3100');

// Create a session
await client.createSession({ id: 'my-session' });

// Execute commands
const result = await client.exec('my-session', 'npm test');
console.log(result.output);

// Search logs
const matches = await client.searchLogs('my-session', 'error|warning', 5);

// Take a screenshot (includes all colors and formatting!)
const screenshot = await client.takeScreenshot('my-session', {
  lines: 50,
  outputPath: './terminal.png'
});

Architecture

┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│      Web GUI (http://localhost:3200)            │
│  - xterm.js terminal rendering                  │
│  - Live Socket.IO updates                       │
│  - Session dashboard                            │
└─────────────────────────────────────────────────┘
                     ↕ Socket.IO
┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│    Session Server (ws://localhost:3100)         │
│  - PTY-based persistent sessions                │
│  - WebSocket API                                │
│  - Event streaming                              │
└─────────────────────────────────────────────────┘
                     ↕ MCP Protocol
┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│       AI Assistant (Cursor, Claude, etc.)       │
│  - 10 MCP tools for session management          │
│  - Start services, run commands                 │
│  - Take screenshots                             │
└─────────────────────────────────────────────────┘

Available Tools (MCP)

Once configured, your AI assistant will have access to these tools:

Session Management

• startService - Start a long-running service with startup detection

• runCommand - Execute a command and wait for completion

• listSessions - Get all active sessions

• killSession - Terminate a specific session (graceful by default)

• killAll - Terminate all active sessions

Interactive Operations

• sendInput - Send input to a running process

• sendSignal - Send a signal (SIGINT, SIGTERM, etc)

sendInput: text, Enter, and named keys

sendInput sends the input text to the session PTY verbatim. Raw control characters cannot pass through the JSON tool layer, so special keys are expressed as named keys (tmux send-keys style) via the keys parameter:

// Type a message into a TUI composer, without submitting
{ "session": "codex", "input": "Hello there", "appendNewline": false }

// Press Enter (as a separate write — some TUIs treat text+CR in one
// write as a paste and won't submit)
{ "session": "codex", "input": "", "keys": ["Enter"] }

// Ctrl+C, Escape, arrow keys...
{ "session": "codex", "input": "", "keys": ["C-c"] }
{ "session": "vim",   "input": "", "keys": ["Esc", "Down", "Down"] }

Supported key names (case-insensitive): Enter, Tab, Shift-Tab, Esc/Escape, Space, Backspace, Delete, Up, Down, Left, Right, Home, End, PageUp, PageDown, F1–F12, C-a..C-z (Ctrl+letter), M-<char> (Alt/Meta). Unknown key names return an error listing the valid vocabulary.

appendNewline appends a carriage return (\r, what a real Enter key sends — correct for both canonical-mode shells and raw-mode TUIs). It defaults to true when keys is absent, and false when keys is given (the caller controls the exact bytes; pass appendNewline: true explicitly to add Enter).

While a command is on its way in, sendInput refuses input other than a lone C-c and sends nothing, since until the command has started, the shell in front could read the input instead. A command is on its way in from the moment its line is typed, or held behind a body still going in, until it starts, ends or is given up, and a body typed in for a shell that can't read the temp file is on its way in until it starts. A command waiting in the server's queue, behind one that hasn't ended or timed out, isn't on its way in yet, so input then goes to the running one. The refusal also ends after two seconds in which the server has typed no line and read no marker, as when a program rather than a shell took the command's line, or a busy shell hasn't read it yet; that doesn't mean the command has started. Send refused input again in a moment. To interrupt a command, use sendSignal with SIGINT, its default, or send the C-c key alone (empty text, keys: ["C-c"]); neither is refused. When either gives up a body that a shell which can't read the temp file is partway through reading, while that shell is at its prompt and the body's line is the last the server typed, the server writes no Ctrl-C: the shell is reading only the server's own typing, which giving the body up stops, and a Ctrl-C reaching it partway through one of the body's lines can leave the shell holding part of that line. That line goes in whole, since each of a body's lines but its last only stores part of the body, and input and the next command wait until the shell has read it, as they wait between a body's lines; a Ctrl-C sent meanwhile isn't written either. Like the refusal, the wait ends after two seconds in which the server has typed no line and read no marker, and a Ctrl-C sent after that is written, since the line may have gone to something other than the shell. The server takes the shell to be at its prompt while the latest marker it printed isn't a command's start marker, unless other input has been sent since and no marker has come for a line the server typed after it. A shell that exits without a marker, as when an ssh connection drops, goes unseen, so a Ctrl-C sent within two seconds of the server's last line or marker may not be written, though a program run after ssh on the same command line may be reading: send it again two seconds later. A body whose lines are all typed may be running, and gets the Ctrl-C, as does a body partway typed in when the server has typed another command's line after the body's, since that line may run its command. So does a body partway typed in after a command's start marker, since that command reads the terminal and may have read the body's first line, and after other input sent with sendInput, which may have started a command.

Log Operations

• tailLogs - Get recent logs from a session

• searchLogs - Search logs with regex patterns and context

• takeScreenshot - Capture terminal screenshot with proper TUI rendering 📸

CLI Usage

The package includes a CLI tool for manual session management:

# List sessions
npx session-cli list

# Create a session
npx session-cli create my-session --cwd=/path/to/dir

# Execute a command
npx session-cli exec my-session "npm test"

# Tail logs
npx session-cli tail my-session --lines=100

# Subscribe to live events
npx session-cli subscribe my-session --replay=50

Web GUI Usage

Start the web GUI to visually manage all your terminal sessions:

# Start on default port (3200)
npx session-gui

# Or custom port
GUI_PORT=8080 npx session-gui

Then open http://localhost:3200 in your browser to:

• View all active sessions in a sidebar

• Click any session to see its xterm.js rendered terminal

• Type commands directly in the web interface

• Watch live updates stream in real-time

• Take screenshots from the rendered terminal

• Monitor multiple services simultaneously

Terminal Screenshots 📸

Perfect for debugging visually rich terminal applications:

// Capture a TUI, progress bar, or ANSI art
const result = await client.takeScreenshot('my-session', {
  lines: 50,           // How many lines to capture
  outputPath: './screenshot.png',  // Save to file
  width: 1200,         // Image width
  height: 800          // Image height
});

// Or get base64 (omit outputPath) - displays inline in MCP!
const { base64 } = await client.takeScreenshot('my-session');

Use cases:

• 📊 Debugging progress bars and spinners

• 🎨 Capturing ANSI art and colors

• 🖥️ Visual regression testing of CLI tools

• 📝 Documenting terminal applications

• 🔍 Sharing colorized logs with proper formatting

Use Cases

1. AI-Assisted Development

Enable AI assistants to manage development services, run tests, and interact with terminal sessions without losing context between responses.

2. Multi-Service Testing

Start and monitor multiple services simultaneously, with intelligent startup detection and log search.

3. Visual Terminal Debugging

Capture screenshots of TUIs, progress bars, and ANSI art for debugging or documentation. The web GUI provides real-time visual feedback.

4. Interactive Debugging

AI assistants can interact with running processes, send input, and observe output in real-time.

5. Team Collaboration

Share terminal sessions between multiple agents or humans. Send a URL to view live terminal output.

Development

# Clone the repository
git clone https://github.com/antra-tess/terminal-sessions-mcp.git
cd terminal-sessions-mcp

# Install dependencies
npm install

# Build
npm run build

# Start session server
npm run start-server

# Start web GUI
npm run start-gui

# Run CLI
npm run cli -- list

# Run demos
npx ts-node examples/screenshot-demo.ts
npx ts-node examples/service-management.ts

Requirements

• Node.js 18.x, 20.x, or 22.x LTS (Node 25+ not yet supported due to node-pty compatibility)

• Headless Chrome (via Puppeteer) for screenshots

• Modern browser for web GUI (Chrome, Firefox, Safari, Edge)

Configuration

Environment Variables

Server:

• SESSION_SERVER_PORT - WebSocket session server port (default: 3100)

• SESSION_SERVER_HOST - Host to bind to (default: localhost)

• SESSION_SERVER_TOKEN - Authentication token (optional, required for remote access by other names unless listed with SESSION_SERVER_ALLOW_HOSTS)

• SESSION_SERVER_ALLOW_HOSTS - Comma-separated Host names (optionally name:port) a token-less server serves besides the loopback names (same as --allow-host)

• SESSION_SERVER_ALLOW_ORIGINS - Comma-separated browser origins allowed besides the GUI's own page (same as --allow-origin)

• GUI_PORT - Web GUI port (default: 3200)

MCP Client:

• SESSION_SERVER_URL - Full WebSocket URL (e.g., ws://192.168.1.100:3100)

• SESSION_SERVER_HOST - Remote host (alternative to full URL)

• SESSION_SERVER_PORT - Remote port (default: 3100)

• SESSION_SERVER_TOKEN - Authentication token (must match server)

• MCP_DEBUG - Enable debug logging (set to "1")

Remote Connections

You can connect to a session server running on a different machine:

On the remote machine:

session-server --host 0.0.0.0 --token mysecrettoken

In your MCP config (local machine):

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "terminal-sessions-remote": {
      "command": "terminal-sessions-mcp",
      "env": {
        "SESSION_SERVER_URL": "ws://192.168.1.100:3100",
        "SESSION_SERVER_TOKEN": "mysecrettoken"
      }
    }
  }
}

You can configure multiple MCP servers to connect to different machines simultaneously.

Troubleshooting

MCP server not loading

1. Ensure the session server is running: npx session-server

2. Check that paths in mcp.json are absolute

3. Restart your AI assistant after configuration changes

4. Enable debug mode: MCP_DEBUG=1

Web GUI not connecting

1. Ensure session server is running on port 3100

2. Check browser console for errors

3. Verify Socket.IO and xterm.js CDN libraries loaded

4. Try a different port if 3200 is occupied

Screenshots failing

1. Ensure Puppeteer can launch headless Chrome

2. Check system resources (memory)

3. Try with fewer lines: lines: 20

License

MIT

Credits

Developed by Anima Labs as part of the Connectome project.

Extracted as a standalone package because terminal session management with proper TUI support is universally useful for AI-assisted development workflows.

Contributing

Contributions welcome! Please open an issue or PR on GitHub.

Star ⭐ this repo if you find it useful!